by Jeff Sovern Report here (may be behind a paywall). FTC bio here. My first reaction is that he's an excellent choice. UPDATE: Blog co-founder and prominent Supreme Court consumer advocate Deepak Gupta on the choice: "This is a home run. There's nobody better than Rohit to take the helm of the CFPB at this […]
Category Archives: Federal Trade Commission
FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and his attorney-advisor Samuel A.A. Levine have wiritten The Case for Resurrecting the FTC Act’s Penalty Offense Authority. Here is the abstract: This article details why the Federal Trade Commission should resurrect one of the key authorities it abandoned in the 1980s: Section 5(m)(1)(B) of the FTC Act, the Penalty Offense […]
West has published the fifth edition of Dee Pridgen's Consumer Protection Law in a Nutshell, the best short introduction to consumer protection law and an extremely useful volume for students and practitioners alike (disclosure: I commented on the manuscript of the fourth edition and coauthor a casebook with Dee). Here are some of the bigger […]
by Jeff Sovern The coronavirus is already having an impact on consumers and consumer protection. Some initial observations: The FTC and FDA have sent warning letters to companies reportedly making deceptive or unsupported claims about their products' ability to treat the coronanvirus. It's good that they're on the job. There have been reports of discrimination against Asians […]
by Jeff Sovern The industry and some others often complain about "regulation by enforcement," by which I gather is meant that enforcement agencies bring actions against businesses without having previously given extremely clear notice that, in the agency's view, the conduct that is the subject of the action violates existing law. Director Cordray's CFPB was […]
by Jeff Sovern A post inspired by a question I heard Kathleen Engel ask: every year second-year students ask professors for suggestions for topics to write about for law reviews. Law professors and other lawyers also cast about for article topics. Meanwhile, administrative agencies often confront questions about what the law is or how it […]
According to a recent story from Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin at the Washington Post, “U.S. regulators have met to discuss imposing a record-setting fine against Facebook” for violating a 2011 consent decree that settled charges that Facebook deceived consumers with regard to its privacy policies and practices. In March 2018, the Federal Trade Commission […]
by Jeff Sovern Regular readers of this blog know that I collect instances of people agreeing to contracts without reading them. Among my examples: Chief Justice Roberts, Judge Posner, Hillary Clinton, and consumer law professors. Now I think we can add FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips to the list, though his remarks are ambiguous enough that […]
by Jeff Sovern Last Thursday, I posted on the blog Republican FTC Commissioners Name Payday Lender Lawyer to Run Consumer Protection Bureau Over Dem Commissioners' Objections. Alan Kaplinsky posted in response A reply to Professor Sovern, in which he wrote that "Jeff’s characterization of Andrew as a “Payday Lender Lawyer” in the title of his blog post […]
by Jeff Sovern The Hill has the story here. Among the confirmed commissioners is Rohit Chopra, formerly of the Consumer Federation of America and the CFPB, and a strong consumer advocate. The other commissioners would be wise to follow his lead on consumer protection matters.